I originally had one of these back in 1993, after buying a '92 frameset from Mike Vaughan Cycles. I'd fallen in love with with the hardtail Delta Vs a year or so before, but as a 15-yr old it had taken me a year to save up for one.
I stuck all the gear from my '92 Pine Mountain on to start with, although the Force 40 didn't last long and it ended up with Maguras instead. After a year the paintwork (the usual black/purple) had gone the way of many 'Dales so I had it resprayed by Dave Yates in gloss black, with gold decals.
By then 8spd XT had come out so it had a wholesale upgrade at the same time, although I went back to cantis as Cannondale had brought out some neat little adaptors to screw into the Force 40 bosses.
It stayed in this guise until about '99 when the fork gave out. In reality I'd grown out of it long before, and had been using a 400mm seatpost for a long time, despite it being a 19". So, reluctantly, I sold it.
For some reason though I kept the canti adaptors, stem, and a few of the other components as they ended up on my missus' bike. That turned out to be quite useful!
Scroll forward to last October and I was slowly bulding up a collection of M735-era XT for a possible project. Idly scanning the classifieds on here I came across this, a 22" DV frameset, exactly the one I had, but a bit bigger....
As you can see the paintwork was rough, and for a while I considered having it repainted in the original colours. Back when I'd had my first one done I'd quite fancied it being polished, as Cannondale had started to offer it as a finish themselves. I didn't know how to do it or who else could though, so I didn't bother.
But with this one, after reading a few of the polishing threads on here, I thought I'd have a go.
Nitromors took the paint off easily enough, but it wouldn't touch the primer, so I ended up using acetone on a rag to get it off, which took about 2hrs. Then the standard wire wool/wet and dry/Autosol ensued, and I thought I'd made a huge mistake for a while, as I was getting nowhere. The metal seemed ridged, as if it was deliberately finished roughly to allow a key for the paint.
Anyway, after about 18hrs in total, some de-anodising on the dropout, headset cups, and canti hangers, it started to look ok.
By this time I'd got everything else together, partly by robbing my Renthal bars and Logic WCS saddle back off our lass' bike (sorry Claire), unearthing some original Gore brake cables, and some tasty M730 cranks in 180mm to match my long legs. It's full XT, bar the skewers, with the same spec wheels (XT, M231s, DTs) that I'd saved for BITD. Fresh decals in contrasting black from Gil M and a shark fin were the icing on the cake.
The forks that came with the frame had an ok cartridge but knackered bearings, so I kept my eye out for another one with the opposite problem. Eventually one surfaced and the two forks were cannibalised to create one good one. They're not absolutely period correct as it's a later '96 cartridge, but it's still 50mm and will have to do.
I got it built up on the 6th of April (my birthday), 17 years to the day since the first one arrived at my Mum's house.
I think the black and silver theme goes well, and it's nicely set off in the flesh by the light gold on the Pace rings.
Since building it it's been ridden 4-5 times, and it's just like my old one - Perfect.
In fact (and having had Cannondales for 17 years) it rides better than my modern one. I dare say it's not as durable but it'll be going along to Enduro 6 and MM as my spare bike. On courses like those it's not giving anything away to a modern bike (although the Onzas will come off in favour of Eggbeaters, as the Onzas haven't improved with age :roll: ), despite missing two cogs, about 50mm of travel and disc brakes.
I'll be the first to admit that other than that it won't get heavy use, but then that's not really what I've ended up with. I've got my 1990 Courier Prestige to use for hacking about on and to annoy the weekend warriors who descend on my area every weekend
This is the bike that I actually wanted back in '92, with none of the cost compromises that I had to make then. As such, it's about as close to perfection as a bike can get for me.
Unless you've got a 21" 1991 Marin Ti you want to push in my direction, of course....
I stuck all the gear from my '92 Pine Mountain on to start with, although the Force 40 didn't last long and it ended up with Maguras instead. After a year the paintwork (the usual black/purple) had gone the way of many 'Dales so I had it resprayed by Dave Yates in gloss black, with gold decals.
By then 8spd XT had come out so it had a wholesale upgrade at the same time, although I went back to cantis as Cannondale had brought out some neat little adaptors to screw into the Force 40 bosses.
It stayed in this guise until about '99 when the fork gave out. In reality I'd grown out of it long before, and had been using a 400mm seatpost for a long time, despite it being a 19". So, reluctantly, I sold it.
For some reason though I kept the canti adaptors, stem, and a few of the other components as they ended up on my missus' bike. That turned out to be quite useful!
Scroll forward to last October and I was slowly bulding up a collection of M735-era XT for a possible project. Idly scanning the classifieds on here I came across this, a 22" DV frameset, exactly the one I had, but a bit bigger....
As you can see the paintwork was rough, and for a while I considered having it repainted in the original colours. Back when I'd had my first one done I'd quite fancied it being polished, as Cannondale had started to offer it as a finish themselves. I didn't know how to do it or who else could though, so I didn't bother.
But with this one, after reading a few of the polishing threads on here, I thought I'd have a go.
Nitromors took the paint off easily enough, but it wouldn't touch the primer, so I ended up using acetone on a rag to get it off, which took about 2hrs. Then the standard wire wool/wet and dry/Autosol ensued, and I thought I'd made a huge mistake for a while, as I was getting nowhere. The metal seemed ridged, as if it was deliberately finished roughly to allow a key for the paint.
Anyway, after about 18hrs in total, some de-anodising on the dropout, headset cups, and canti hangers, it started to look ok.
By this time I'd got everything else together, partly by robbing my Renthal bars and Logic WCS saddle back off our lass' bike (sorry Claire), unearthing some original Gore brake cables, and some tasty M730 cranks in 180mm to match my long legs. It's full XT, bar the skewers, with the same spec wheels (XT, M231s, DTs) that I'd saved for BITD. Fresh decals in contrasting black from Gil M and a shark fin were the icing on the cake.
The forks that came with the frame had an ok cartridge but knackered bearings, so I kept my eye out for another one with the opposite problem. Eventually one surfaced and the two forks were cannibalised to create one good one. They're not absolutely period correct as it's a later '96 cartridge, but it's still 50mm and will have to do.
I got it built up on the 6th of April (my birthday), 17 years to the day since the first one arrived at my Mum's house.
I think the black and silver theme goes well, and it's nicely set off in the flesh by the light gold on the Pace rings.
Since building it it's been ridden 4-5 times, and it's just like my old one - Perfect.
In fact (and having had Cannondales for 17 years) it rides better than my modern one. I dare say it's not as durable but it'll be going along to Enduro 6 and MM as my spare bike. On courses like those it's not giving anything away to a modern bike (although the Onzas will come off in favour of Eggbeaters, as the Onzas haven't improved with age :roll: ), despite missing two cogs, about 50mm of travel and disc brakes.
I'll be the first to admit that other than that it won't get heavy use, but then that's not really what I've ended up with. I've got my 1990 Courier Prestige to use for hacking about on and to annoy the weekend warriors who descend on my area every weekend
This is the bike that I actually wanted back in '92, with none of the cost compromises that I had to make then. As such, it's about as close to perfection as a bike can get for me.
Unless you've got a 21" 1991 Marin Ti you want to push in my direction, of course....
